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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par