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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. 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 degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par