This latest work features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling 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 Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
