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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "clean slate", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, because this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par