This latest work features characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
The writer began as 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 abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
