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The new book is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par