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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par