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The new book features characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era 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. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par