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The new book features characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer 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 intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par