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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par