This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
