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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par