This latest work centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness 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 turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.
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 Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with 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 Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
