This latest work centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
