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This latest work features protagonists seeking new beginnings, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. 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 decided to make a fresh start" recur in the narrative. Meanwhile, the author herself seems to be making her own fresh start, since this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

The writer started out as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to explore different types of content, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. The book includes the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader fond of refined literature of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the opening part.

As a reader who favors honed writing of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the bucket that the youthful Catt frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like hard candy". The author narrates Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the second segment. The protagonist is working on refurbishing multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She feels helpless as her spouse moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the murder itself – and the referenced day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his associates. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner 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 fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par