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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "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."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named 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 with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par