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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par