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This latest work centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par