This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer began 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, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
