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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated 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. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par