This latest work is populated with characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par