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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, because this seems a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she presently aims to try out different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that current political era makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling 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 story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par