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The new book features protagonists chasing after new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to experiment with fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

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 Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus often avoids, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works returns in the central part. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would not understand, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par