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This latest work is populated with protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form brought to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a time when she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning several time periods – each trapped by their backgrounds. We encounter the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Additionally 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 substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I expected this new voice could last out the book. Kraus says here that she dislikes the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the referenced day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes great source material, and reconstructs step by step what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney herself, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par