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The new book is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par