This latest work is populated with individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough 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 rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
