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The new book centers on characters pursuing new beginnings, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a novel form of writing – fact-based, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an visual artist who became a writer almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, converting confessional female writing from self-debasement into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on housing investments. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Three Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader fond of honed writing of the type Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the first section.

Being a reader drawn to honed writing of the kind that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a new quality of attentiveness that allows space for small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her adored dad. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a lovely toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this fresh tone could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to disjunction, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her hero author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a environment fueled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "landlord" on the online encyclopedia. Kraus still seems to care a little too much about this. At one point she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. The author possesses excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day alongside her friends, mooching around getting his car mended and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who gains dimension in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that her narrative ends almost mid-par