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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par