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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par