The new book features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
