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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par