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The new book is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had turned into a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a moment when she states that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disjunction, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the second segment. Catt Greene is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "author" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the titular day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further 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 derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par