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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par