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This latest work centers on individuals chasing after fresh starts, trying to break free from substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Examples include "He aimed to start over" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be packed with the recurring issues and approaches as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an visual artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the power and directness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a nonconformist creator who had evolved into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It is logical that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to the experiences of others, at a time when she states that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, representations of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. There is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads drawn to precise prose of the variety that Kraus often disregards, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates trivial aspects, like the bucket that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the pleasure audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the unpolished style she echoes from her hero author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the central part. Catt Greene is attempting to do up 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the victim with the killer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and details moment by moment what transpired when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the point that her narrative ends almost mid-par