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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par