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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par