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The new book is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par