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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par