🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, 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 amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par