The new book is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
