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The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or abusive marriages, only to see hope turn into conflict. The author repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, as this appears a different type of work – fact-based, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a renegade artist who had become a major property owner, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she claims that current political era renders personal narrative obsolete.

Three Generations, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to honed writing of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the enjoyment audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a world propelled by the anger and fear that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she says 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 overlook entirely".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par