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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par