The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise 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. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
