This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet 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 alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension 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 prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
