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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around 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."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par