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The new book features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par