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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, 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, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is 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 struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par