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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par