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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par