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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par