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The Four Spent the Day Together features characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it deliberately jaded through its repetitions. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. Yet it reveals itself to be filled with the same dilemmas and styles as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. The book includes the story of Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. There is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by progressive politics only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the novelistic voice of the first section. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, wandering about fixing his automobile 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 frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels curiously unresolved, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par