The new book is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
