This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized 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 ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
