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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of 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 story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par