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This latest work features characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par