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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par