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This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into violence. Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a novel form of writing – observational, truly literary. But then it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus started out as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming confessional female writing from self-debasement into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels lacked the power and directness that the letter form brought to the voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It follows that she presently aims to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a period in which she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. We encounter the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the account of a killing of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates trivial aspects, like the container that the youthful Catt pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, aided by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he responds, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished 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 shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the central part. Catt is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "property owner" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the United States that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what happened when Brandon came to visit 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 alongside her friends, wandering about having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and reckless transgression tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who becomes vivid partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par