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The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket 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 says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par