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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see 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, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par