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This latest work features individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story 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 hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par