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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application 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 having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling 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 comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par