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The new book centers on characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par