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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "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 titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par