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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus was originally an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par