This latest work centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, 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 second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
