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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par