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This latest work features characters chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be laden with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she presently aims to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par