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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par