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The new book centers on protagonists chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that the author tends to eschew, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. On one occasion she says that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

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 tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par