The new book centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment 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 author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par