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The new book features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par