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The new book is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application 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 killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par