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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet 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 with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par