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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see 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, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par