This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this 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 is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
