This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed 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 her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
