This latest work centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
