This latest work features characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. 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 seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
