This latest work centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
