This latest work features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.
As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
