The new book centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure 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 inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation 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 the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
