The new book centers on characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
