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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par