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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. 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, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par