The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, 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
