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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par