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This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man 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 responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par