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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "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 different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par