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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par