🔗 Share this article

The new book is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par