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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone 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 committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par