The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks 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 fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us 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 the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
