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The new book centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, 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