🔗 Share this article

The new book centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par