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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par