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The new book features individuals seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par