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The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks 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 be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as 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, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par