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This latest work centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into aggression. Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – observational, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She kept producing books, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the power and directness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a renegade artist who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to experiment with different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their histories. There is the tale of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a brief drive from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader fond of refined literature of the type the author herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language circulating in their speech like sweet treats". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse transitions between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what transpired when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied 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 boyfriend a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

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 clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partly through Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par