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The new book is populated with protagonists chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her personal new beginning, since this appears a different type of work – observational, truly literary. Yet it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that powers an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par