This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
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 enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
