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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes 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" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet 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 in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered 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

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par