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The new book is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par