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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing 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 curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par