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The new book is populated with protagonists pursuing new beginnings, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to see hope turn into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through constant reiteration. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her individual reinvention, as this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. But then it proves to be filled with the recurring issues and aesthetics as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who became a writer somewhat by chance with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, made up of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from humiliation into defiance. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent fascinating and rebarbative novels missed the impact and rawness that the correspondence format infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was considerable focus on real estate deals. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, turning outward to external narratives, at a moment when she asserts that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – all unable to escape their pasts. The book includes the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of her own mother and father, transitioning from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Additionally the narrative of the author, in the character of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one directionless individual by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the variety that Kraus herself usually avoids, I was seduced by the literary tone of the opening segment. It possesses a fresh level of observation that makes room for minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "Look, an ice toy!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this fresh tone could last out the book. Kraus notes here that she resents the satisfaction those who appreciate polished prose have taken from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels reasserts itself in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between two different states, failing to help Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an addiction therapist in a world fueled by the anger and fear that drives an electoral success. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to care a little too much 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 America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the murder itself – and the eponymous day experienced by the murdered individual with the killer and his associates. The author possesses compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day in the company of her associates, mooching around 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 aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I was intrigued by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus notes that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par