The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
