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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration 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 the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par