The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
