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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par