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The new book is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from humiliation into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on real estate deals. It is logical that she presently aims to explore different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As a reader who favors crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his companions. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as a man named Brandon came to meet Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par