🔗 Share this article

This latest work features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative 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 property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing 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 perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par