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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par