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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par