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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy 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 turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par