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This latest work features characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par