The new book features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
