This latest work features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
