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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app 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 paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par