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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par