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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

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 dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par