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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par