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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing 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

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par