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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par