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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par