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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, she seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus was originally an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par