The new book is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style 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 unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
