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This latest work features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par