The new book is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
