This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
