This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative 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. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
