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This latest work features individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems 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 might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. 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 amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par