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The new book features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses 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 compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par