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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par