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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. 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 emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control 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. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par