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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par