The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent 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 a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
