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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par