The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs 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" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
