This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
