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The new book features characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy 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 murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par