This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
