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This latest work is populated with individuals pursuing new beginnings, trying to break free from drugs or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" appear throughout the story. Meanwhile, she is embarking on her own fresh start, because this presents as a new kind of book – observational, truly literary. Yet it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world almost accidentally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming intimate women's literature from self-debasement into rebellion. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels lacked the impact and rawness that the epistolary style brought to the tone of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to external narratives, at a period in which she states that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering three generations – all unable to escape their backgrounds. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one directionless individual by another in a town long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to polished prose of the sort Kraus herself often avoids, I was seduced by the narrative style of the initial segment.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus often disregards, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for trivial aspects, like the container that the young Catt pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, assisted by her beloved father. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the elliptical meanings of words tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". Kraus writes Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, failing to help Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as Paul transitions between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the hostility and dread that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her listed profession modified from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before exiting the region, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would fail to comprehend, would overlook entirely".

The Murder Narrative

So then we come to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and reconstructs step by step what happened when Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, loitering fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards ethical reporting and daring boundary-pushing tussle in this section. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who comes alive partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par