The new book centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes 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 inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
