🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par