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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband 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 short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par