The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex 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 murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations 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 struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
