This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes 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 sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
