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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par