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This latest work is populated with characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this appears a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. The book includes the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of polished prose of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the style that the author tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like hard candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she resents the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par