This latest work features protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.
As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
