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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par