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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "clean slate", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she states 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 not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par