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The new book is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise 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. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim 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 alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions 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 going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par