The new book is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. 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. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character 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 notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
