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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader who appreciates honed writing of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par