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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par