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This latest work features protagonists pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", 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. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. It possesses a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes 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 wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband control his drinking. 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 underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend 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 account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par