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The new book centers on characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par