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This latest work is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this presents as a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the kind Kraus herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader drawn to crafted language of the variety that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she has in common with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day passed by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par