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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed 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 "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par