This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
The writer was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.
Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.
As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.
Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. 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, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Killing Story
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par