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The new book is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par