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The new book centers on individuals seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, she is embarking on her own fresh start, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It follows that she currently desires to explore different types of content, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she asserts that contemporary political climate renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the initial segment.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the first section. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

So then we come to the actual killing – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the killer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par