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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par