🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", 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 text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par