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This latest work is populated with characters pursuing clean slates, trying to break free from addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the story. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, as this presents as a different type of work – fact-based, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus was originally an creative who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from humiliation into assassination. She continued writing, but the following three compelling and abrasive novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a maverick maker who had become a major property owner, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It is logical that she now wants to explore new kinds of material, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she asserts that current political era renders personal narrative redundant.

Multiple Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the narrative about Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, moving from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only a short distance from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to polished prose of the type the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As a reader who favors precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a fresh level of observation that allows space for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the elliptical meanings of words rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was bound to become frustrated when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have gotten from I Love Dick; she's committed to disruption, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while traveling between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as her spouse transitions between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the hostility and dread that powers a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to be overly concerned about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the titular day spent by the murdered individual with the killer and his friends. Kraus has excellent raw material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, wandering about getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being murdered by Brittney's partner Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards responsible documentation and reckless transgression clash in this segment. Yet I wished her to explore more thoroughly her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman going off the rails in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par