This latest work is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
