The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, 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 nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued 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 own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
