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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par