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This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of characters 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 guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide 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 a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter 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 a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par