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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par