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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par