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The new book features characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par