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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par