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The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par