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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par