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The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par