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This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this presents as a new kind of book – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the recurring issues and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach 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 beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par