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The new book centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the 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 explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par