The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
