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This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the story. At the same time, Kraus herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus began as an creative who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the power and directness that the correspondence format imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning three generations – none able to break free from their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads drawn to honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that powers an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the victim with the murderer and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par