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The new book centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par