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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness 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 turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest 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 fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par