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This latest work features characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "fresh start", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" recur in the story. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and styles as earlier books.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an creative who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature redundant.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to rural Connecticut. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse her husband Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one directionless individual by another in a town largely deserted by progressive politics only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Disappointment and Disjunction

I was fated to feel let down when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. Kraus notes here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her hero Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her past books comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while traveling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through poorly supported positions as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the hostility and dread that underpins an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day experienced by the victim with the murderer and his friends. Kraus utilizes great source material, and details moment by moment what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but seems amiably to have occupied the day alongside her friends, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has frequently been hospitalised for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a difficult, overlooked locality. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in prison, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par