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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par