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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels 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 moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder 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 Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par