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The new book centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned 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 nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par