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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the letter form imparted to the 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 significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression 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 gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par