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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par