The new book features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
