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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par