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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par