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The new book centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par