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The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when 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 with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par