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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par