The new book centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
