The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
