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This latest work features individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par