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The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par