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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par