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This latest work features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par