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This latest work features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, 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 a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par