This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "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 new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
