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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative 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 new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par