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The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 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 Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par