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The Four Spent the Day Together features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the story. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an creative who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she presently aims to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's story with interest and closeness. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par