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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes 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 destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par