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The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", 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 text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, 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 – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with 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 troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety 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 "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par