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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative 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 property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par