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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. And yet, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par