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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par