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The new book is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par