The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
