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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" 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 researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par