This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness 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 become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character 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 struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
