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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par