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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par