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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par