This latest work is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
