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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named 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 in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, 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