The new book is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
