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This latest work centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par