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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par