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This latest work centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet 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 with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par