The new book is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
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 Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
