This latest work centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "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 personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
