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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par