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The new book features characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet 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, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par