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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, 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 exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn 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 titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par