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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par