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This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through its repetitions. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the text. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to explore new kinds of material, looking outwards to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the sort Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for small details, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between two different states, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as a man named 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, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par