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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths 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."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as 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 with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par