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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished 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 devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par