This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished 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 – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
