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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par