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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par