🔗 Share this article

This latest work is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par