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This latest work is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet 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 with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par