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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. 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, the author herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par