🔗 Share this article

This latest work centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par