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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par