This latest work features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn 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 opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
