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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par