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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion 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 social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par