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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit 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, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par