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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par