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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling 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 directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing 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 Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par