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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" 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 looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par