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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, as this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

The writer started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Several Eras, 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. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition 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 locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par