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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par