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The new book is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing 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 becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par