This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
