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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of 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 account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par