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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting 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 partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par