The new book features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet 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 covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
