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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states 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 three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par