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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued 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 own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par