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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, 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 world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par