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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive 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 Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par