🔗 Share this article

The new book features characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues 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 accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par