This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour 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 with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
