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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par