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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating confessional female writing from abjection 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 letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the kind that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". She tells Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels returns in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par