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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par