🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par