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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par