This latest work centers on characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
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 wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid 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 speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
