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This latest work is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par