This latest work features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
