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The new book features individuals pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into aggression. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into deliberately jaded through constant reiteration. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, as this seems a new kind of book – fact-based, truly literary. However it reveals itself to be packed with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from self-debasement into assassination. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the persona of protagonist Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself often avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

Being a reader drawn to precise prose of the style that the author often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, aided by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech 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 bound to become frustrated when I expected this new voice could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her past books comes back in the central part. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "novelist" to "property owner" on a reference site. The author still appears to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, mooching around getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par