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This latest work features protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par