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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is 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 addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par