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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, 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 container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par