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The new book features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par