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This latest work is populated with individuals chasing after clean slates, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through recurring use. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, because this presents as a novel form of writing – documentarian, truly literary. But then it reveals itself to be packed with the familiar conflicts and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting intimate women's literature from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the power and directness that the epistolary style infused into the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics renders personal narrative obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. There is the narrative about characters Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the Bronx to rural Connecticut. There is the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a locality largely deserted by liberal ideals only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader fond of refined literature of the kind the author herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the literary tone of the opening part.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening segment. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like hard candy". The author narrates the tale of Emma with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment those who appreciate polished prose have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the rage and anxiety that powers a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "landlord" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she says that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Homicide Account

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day passed by the victim with the murderer and his associates. Kraus has excellent raw material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and paying for snacks and drugs, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. 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 point that her narrative ends almost mid-par