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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par