The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.
From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic
The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".
The Murder Narrative
So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par
