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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

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 opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" 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 investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par