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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par