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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit 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 with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par