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The new book centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par