The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform 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 funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
