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The new book centers on characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par