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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of 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, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par