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The Four Spent the Day Together features individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par