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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to meet 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, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par