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This latest work features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man 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 type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the kind that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par