The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
