🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par