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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par