The new book features individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
