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This latest work features characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to 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