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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy 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 shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par