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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells 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 hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par