The new book features individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
