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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par