The new book centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. 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" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
