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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par