This latest work is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par