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The new book is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par