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This latest work features protagonists chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. 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 is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice 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 much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, 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 sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to 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 detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par