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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into conflict. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into deliberately jaded through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the story. And yet, the author herself seems to be making 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 her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

The writer was originally an creative who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, elevating personal female narrative from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels missed the impact and rawness that the letter form infused into the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with new kinds of material, looking outwards to external narratives, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – all unable to escape their histories. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. The third thread involves the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in a remote part of Minnesota.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section.

As a reader drawn to crafted language of the kind that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the literary tone of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for trivial aspects, like the pail that the young Catt frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her cherished parent. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths 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 destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus notes here that she resents the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is trying to renovate multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that underpins a political win. A significant portion discusses about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she says that she's researching the homicide so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the United States that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day passed by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, loitering fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for fits of anger.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is Brittney herself, who gains dimension partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par