🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position 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 presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

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

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par