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The new book is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn 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 titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par