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The new book features protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par