This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States 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 spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
