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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par