This latest work features characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.
From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.
From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".
The Murder Narrative
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par
