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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their backgrounds. The book includes the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "author" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par