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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par