The new book features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
