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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par