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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par