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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par