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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed 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 violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par