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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par