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The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "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 fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par