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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists seeking clean slates, trying to break free from substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this seems a novel form of writing – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – each trapped by their pasts. There is the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a environment propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "author" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the killer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par