🔗 Share this article

The new book features characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus 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 won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par