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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par