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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par