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The new book is populated with individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par