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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist 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, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par