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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par