This latest work is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character 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. The third thread involves the account of a killing 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 rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about 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 frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
