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The new book centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par