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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. And yet, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par