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The new book features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par