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The new book centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment 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 seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par