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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par