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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par