This latest work features protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.
From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work
Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background
The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.
As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."
Disappointment and Disjunction
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".
The Murder Narrative
Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Fascination and Incompletion
Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par
