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This latest work is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par