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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par