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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par