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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into 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 much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par