This latest work centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
