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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par