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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par