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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story 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 persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par