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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par