🔗 Share this article

The new book features characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "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 entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par