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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par