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The new book features characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see 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 fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par