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This latest work features protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, as this seems a different type of work – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It follows that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a locality mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par