This latest work centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning 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 directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
