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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par