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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy 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 major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par