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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered 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. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner 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 her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par