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This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the narrative. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his companions. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par