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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par