This latest work is populated with individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated 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 delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par
