The new book centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs 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 Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
