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This latest work features individuals seeking clean slates, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. Meanwhile, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, as this presents as a different type of work – observational, authentically narrative. However it proves to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate makes confessional writing redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her past books returns in the central part. Catt is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the referenced day experienced by the murdered individual with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering getting his car mended 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 aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par