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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par