THE FOUR SPENT THE DAY TOGETHER

The latest work of autofiction by an iconic Los Angeles writer.

Kraus’ first novel in more than a decade meditates on her childhood in 1960s Connecticut and her middle age in LA and northern Minnesota, pinning down, in their contrasts and humming throughlines, “trace elements of a lost Americana.” Kraus records her days at these distinct points in her life, occasionally assuming the points-of-view of those close to her and, in the final portion, strangers. In the first section, “Milford,” Jasper and Emma Greene and their daughters, Catt and Carla, move from the Bronx to Milford, Connecticut, where Emma struggles to connect with her new community and parent Carla, who has a developmental disability, and Jasper works long hours and cultivates Catt’s literary sensibilities. The lens eventually shifts to Catt, the protagonist, as she tumbles into an adolescence of truancy, hitchhiking, and huffing office supplies. “Balsam” picks up four decades later, in Minnesota’s Iron Range. Catt is a well-regarded writer, living in Los Angeles. After a few summers spent in Minnesota, writing and escaping the claustrophobia of the art world, Catt and her partner, Paul Garcia, buy a cottage on a lake in Balsam to live in part-time. The Trump years bring personal as well as political turmoil, as Catt and Paul face issues in their marriage and Catt confronts a wave of media attention from a new generation when her cult-classic first novel is adapted for TV. Then, in 2019, a shocking, meth-fueled murder near the cottage reels Catt into obsession with the four young people involved. “Harding” alternates between Catt’s life as she reaches for answers to this senseless crime and a fictionalized account of the events leading up to the real-life murder, based on Kraus’ research and interviews with those close to the case. Kraus’ deftness in planting events and swirls of thought in their respective places and times, revealing the rhythms of life with a subtle hand, transforms a series of anecdotes and a true-crime fixation into a stirring narrative of class, addiction, and the question of forgiveness in a cultural landscape increasingly hostile toward empathy and nuance.

Kraus’ relentless curiosity is a gravitational force.