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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par