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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness 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 turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, 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 might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par