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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to 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