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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par