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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par