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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par