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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par