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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par