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This latest work features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par