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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

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 those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par