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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. Catt Greene is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet 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 having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man 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 her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par