This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim 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 in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
