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This latest work is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to honed writing of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

Being a reader who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the pail that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this new voice could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world propelled by the rage and anxiety that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par