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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion 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 the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when 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 with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par