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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par