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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par