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The new book centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into 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 much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par