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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned 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 not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par