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This latest work features individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma 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 expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par