This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
