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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning 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 story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par