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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses 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 the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par