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This latest work centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par