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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par