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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with 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 omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par