This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
