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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized 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 responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par