This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations 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 struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
