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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance 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 seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that the author often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par