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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". 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 hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par