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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise 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 locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par