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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par