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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, 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. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par