The new book features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.
Three Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.
Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par