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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with 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 story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par