The new book features individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
