This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
