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This latest work centers on characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "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 expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par