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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par