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This latest work is populated with characters seeking fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who appreciates crafted language of the kind that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through underfunded jobs as an addiction therapist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par