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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par