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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest 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 intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par