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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par