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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par