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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par