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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned 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 America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control 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 strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par