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The new book centers on individuals pursuing clean slates, struggling to escape addictions or toxic relationships, only to see hope turn into conflict. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Examples include "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They decided to make a fresh start" recur in the text. And yet, the author herself is embarking on her individual reinvention, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Chance Novelist to Renowned Book

Kraus started out as an visual artist who entered the literary world somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, which was composed of epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating confessional female writing from abjection into assassination. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the letter form imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her identity as a renegade artist who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on housing investments. It makes sense that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to external narratives, at a time when she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing three generations – none able to break free from their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, based on her own mother and father, transitioning from the urban environment to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one troubled youth by another in a town largely deserted by liberal ideals only a short distance from Catt's rural residence in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus typically rejects, I was enchanted by the narrative style of the first section.

As someone who reads who appreciates crafted language of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was seduced by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. It exhibits a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the pail that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she declares; "a great plaything", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like sweet treats". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I wished this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the pleasure readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disjunction, to the unpolished style she shares with her idol Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is attempting to do up multiple decrepit residences in the city's most challenging districts while traveling between Minnesota and LA, failing to help her husband manage his alcohol use. She is overwhelmed as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the anger and fear that powers a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "author" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. Kraus still seems to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she may grasp something about an the United States that her online critics would fail to comprehend, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the titular day experienced by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his friends. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after connecting via an application where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but seems amiably to have occupied the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has often been institutionalized for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the narrative, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and audacious rule-breaking wrestle in this part. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that Catt converses with Brittney in jail, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par