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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative 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 wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par