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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par