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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech 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."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par