The new book centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit 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 with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
