The new book features individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
