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The new book centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, 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 asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par