The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
