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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion 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 Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par