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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words 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 hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par