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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par