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The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par