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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par