The new book centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths 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 fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
