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This latest work features individuals chasing after fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, she seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this appears a novel form of writing – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she currently desires to try out fresh narrative sources, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their histories. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, representations of Kraus's parents, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to refined literature of the type Kraus often avoids, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author often disregards, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the young Catt dislodges from ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could last out the book. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins Trump's victory. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par