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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par