The new book is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone 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 much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting 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 directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as 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 with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
