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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par