🔗 Share this article

This latest work features individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation 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. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par