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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see 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, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par