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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par