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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she states that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the kind Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession 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. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par