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The new book features individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. However it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that makes room for minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par