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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when 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 amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named 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 narrative, 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. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par