The new book features characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
