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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive 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 maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par