This latest work features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
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 dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
