This latest work centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
