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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par