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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par