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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par