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This latest work features characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot 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 intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par