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The new book is populated with characters chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into aggression. Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the text. Meanwhile, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. However it turns out to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as earlier books.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into defiance. She kept producing books, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a nonconformist creator who had become a extensive real estate holder, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It is logical that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the story of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the character of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse a man named Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's cottage in rural Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the eponymous day passed by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when a man named Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par