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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container 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 declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par