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This latest work features individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par