The new book is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems 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 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 passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
