This latest work centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted 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 the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
