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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend 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 account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par