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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par