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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par