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The new book is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par