This latest work features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
