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The new book features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par