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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par