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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader fond of polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books comes back in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the referenced day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire 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 found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par