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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted 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. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par