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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par