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This latest work features protagonists chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. And yet, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this seems a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

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, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing 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 drawn to honed writing of the sort Kraus often avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the variety that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when 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 alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par