The new book centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
