The new book is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Frustration and Disruption
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
