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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", rendering it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par