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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par