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This latest work features individuals seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par