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The new book centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences 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 transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par