🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". 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 fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par