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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par