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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par