This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says 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 Murder Narrative
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
