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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par