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The new book is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or toxic relationships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, since this appears a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it turns out to be laden with the recurring issues and approaches as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. 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 account of Kraus, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of honed writing of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par