🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive 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 tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par