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This latest work features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par