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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

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 audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator 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 offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, 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