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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par