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The Four Spent the Day Together centers on protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par