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This latest work centers on characters chasing after clean slates, attempting to leave behind drugs or abusive marriages, only to find hope curdling into violence. Chris Kraus often employs the phrase "new beginning", transforming it into intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the text. At the same time, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this presents as a different type of work – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. However it proves to be packed with the familiar conflicts and approaches as her previous works.

From Accidental Writer to Renowned Book

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, made up of letters to an unreceptive lover, transforming confessional female writing from abjection into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format brought to the voice of I Love Dick. Compounding this was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on real estate deals. It follows that she now wants to try out fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a moment when she claims that Trumpian politics makes confessional writing obsolete.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, encompassing multiple eras – each trapped by their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the urban environment to a pastoral setting. There is the account of Kraus, in the character of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her substance-dependent spouse Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community largely deserted by progressive politics only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who favors crafted language of the style that the author usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the opening segment. There is a novel degree of detail that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child dislodges from ice at the start of the story, assisted by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she declares; "a nice toy", he responds, "the ambiguous meanings of language rolling around in their mouths like sweet treats". The author narrates Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "It seemed to Emma she had entered a dream – not entirely her own."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the pleasure audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the messy artistic approach she echoes from her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. The protagonist is trying to renovate three dozen dilapidated units in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while moving between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid her husband control his drinking. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives Trump's victory. There are several pages about Catt being cancelled on social media, her occupation changed from "writer" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to care a little too much about this. In a moment she states that she's investigating the murder so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the murderer and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and details moment by moment what occurred as Brandon came to visit Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, wandering about getting his car mended and covering the cost of food and substances, before being killed by gunfire by Brittney's partner Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The compelling persona is Brittney, who comes alive in part due to the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels strangely incomplete, to the point that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par