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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment 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 fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par