The new book is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered 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 story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
