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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par