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The new book features characters seeking fresh starts, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus frequently uses the phrase "new beginning", making it intentionally weary through recurring use. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the narrative. At the same time, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it turns out to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus started out as an visual artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as missives to a distant beloved, converting personal female narrative from abjection into defiance. She continued writing, but the next trio of engaging and challenging novels lacked the power and directness that the epistolary style imparted to the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a maverick maker who had turned into a major property owner, so there was much discussion on housing investments. It makes sense that she presently aims to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a moment when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their histories. We encounter the tale of Emma and Jasper, versions of Kraus's parents, moving from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the character of Catt Greene, confronting the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. Finally the narrative of a homicide of one lost young man by another in a town mostly forsaken by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

For this reader fond of polished prose of the kind Kraus tends to eschew, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.

As someone who reads who favors honed writing of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was captivated by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a fresh level of observation that allows space for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the opening of the book, helped by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he replies, "the ambiguous meanings of language tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not entirely her own."

Frustration and Disruption

I was fated to feel let down when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment audiences such as myself have derived from I Love Dick; she's devoted to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her idol author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while moving between Minnesota and LA, unsuccessful in assisting Paul manage his alcohol use. She feels helpless as Paul cycles through underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "writer" to "property owner" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before departing the state, "she may grasp something about an America that her online critics would not understand, would not even perceive".

The Murder Narrative

Then we reach to the actual killing – and the titular day experienced by the deceased with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and details moment by moment what happened when Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about fixing his automobile and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for violent rage.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

The protagonist becomes fixated by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that her twin drives towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who becomes vivid partly through Catt seeing herself in her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a difficult, overlooked locality. Kraus notes that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she omits the dramatization of these talks. The whole section feels curiously unresolved, to the degree that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par