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The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim 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 troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par