🔗 Share this article

The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par