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The new book features characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par