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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, 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 progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet 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, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par