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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par