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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that the author often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states 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

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par