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This latest work features characters pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer was originally an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par