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The new book features characters seeking clean slates, attempting to leave behind addictions or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. The author often employs the phrase "new beginning", rendering it willfully cynical through constant reiteration. Sentences like "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They chose to begin anew" recur in the text. At the same time, she is embarking on her individual reinvention, as this seems a different type of work – documentarian, truly literary. But then it turns out to be filled with the familiar conflicts and styles as earlier books.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Chris Kraus was originally an visual artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, elevating intimate women's literature from humiliation into rebellion. She continued writing, but the next trio of compelling and abrasive novels lacked the shock and immediacy that the epistolary style infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her position as a nonconformist creator who had turned into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she now wants to try out different types of content, directing her gaze to external narratives, at a period in which she states that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of Emma and Jasper, representations of her own mother and father, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Additionally the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, reckoning with the belated success of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community long abandoned by forward-thinking policies only 80 miles from the protagonist's home in a remote part of Minnesota.

As a reader attracted to honed writing of the kind Kraus herself tends to eschew, I was enchanted by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

As a reader who appreciates honed writing of the style that Kraus herself often disregards, I was seduced by the literary tone of the first section. It possesses a novel degree of detail that makes room for trivial aspects, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the opening of the book, helped by her beloved father. "I found an ice toy!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms circulating in their speech like piece candy". She tells Emma's story with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this new voice could continue through the novel. Kraus says here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her previous novels returns in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unable to aid Paul manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a environment propelled by the anger and fear that underpins a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on social media, her occupation changed from "author" to "property owner" on a reference site. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she remarks that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her Twitter detractors would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

Thus we arrive to the actual killing – and the eponymous day experienced by the deceased with the killer and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as Brandon came to meet Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she marketed explicit images. He anticipated intimacy but seems amiably to have occupied 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 a man named Micah – a individual with mental health challenges who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I found myself captivated by the way that the author's conflicting impulses towards accurate chronicling and reckless transgression tussle in this section. Yet I wished her to delve deeper into her individual preoccupations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of the protagonist's connection to her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual spiraling out of control in a troubled, forgotten town. The author informs us that Catt speaks to Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par