This latest work features protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. 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 departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
