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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "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 precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par