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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself 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 minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par