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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned 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 Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par