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The new book features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet 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 with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par