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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells 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