This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
