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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, 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, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par