This latest work is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, 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 story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
