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The new book is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par