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The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par