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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes 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 with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par