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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par