This latest work is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered 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 investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous 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 meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
