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This latest work centers on characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – each trapped by their histories. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the narrative of the author, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the container that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul cycles through low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension 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 speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par