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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

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

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten 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 earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par