The new book centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
