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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice 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 hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par