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This latest work features characters seeking fresh starts, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a new kind of book – observational, genuinely novelistic. However it reveals itself to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to polished prose of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, assisted by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this different style could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she dislikes the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books returns in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par