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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success 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 town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par