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This latest work is populated with characters seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape drugs or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", making it willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They chose to begin anew" are scattered across the text. Meanwhile, the author herself appears to be undertaking her personal new beginning, because this seems a different type of work – fact-based, authentically narrative. However it turns out to be laden with the same dilemmas and approaches as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Iconic Work

Chris Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing somewhat by chance with her 1997 groundbreaking book I Love Dick, structured as letters to an unreceptive lover, converting intimate women's literature from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent engaging and challenging novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the letter form infused into the voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a major property owner, so there was significant attention on property transactions. It is logical that she currently desires to explore fresh narrative sources, turning outward to the experiences of others, at a time when she asserts that current political era turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Several Eras, Shared Inescapable History

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – each trapped by their pasts. We encounter the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of a figure named Catt Greene, grappling with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her addict husband her husband Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality largely deserted by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in the Minnesota countryside.

From my perspective as a reader attracted to refined literature of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the narrative style of the opening part.

Being a reader who favors precise prose of the variety that Kraus usually avoids, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the initial part. It possesses a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the container that the young Catt frees from the ice at the opening of the book, assisted by her cherished parent. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a great plaything", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not hers, exactly."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this fresh tone could continue through the novel. The author states here that she dislikes the enjoyment readers like me have gotten from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the messy artistic approach she has in common with her inspiration author Kathy Acker, and the blankness and repetitiveness of her previous novels reasserts itself in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between two different states, failing to help her husband curb his addiction. She feels helpless as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an recovery specialist in a society fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. A significant portion discusses about Catt being cancelled on social media, her listed profession modified from "novelist" to "landlord" on a reference site. The author still appears to be overly concerned 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 murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the murdered individual with the perpetrator and his companions. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after connecting via an application where she sold sex pictures. He was hoping for sex but seems affably to have spent the day with her companions, mooching around having his vehicle repaired and covering the cost of food and substances, before being murdered by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Obsession and Unfinished Business

Catt develops an obsession by the story, and I was intrigued by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. However, I would have preferred her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The compelling persona is Brittney herself, who comes alive partly through Catt's identification with her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus tells us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in jail, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the point that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par