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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim 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 visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par