This latest work centers on characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book
The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.
Several Eras, One Unescapable Past
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.
As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.
As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative 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 different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".
The Killing Story
Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.
Preoccupation and Open Ends
Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is 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 difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
