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The new book centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice 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 committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par