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The new book centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around 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 repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. 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 seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par