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This latest work centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, 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 own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par