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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par