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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses 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, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par