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The new book features individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par