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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par