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This latest work features individuals seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par