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This latest work centers on protagonists chasing after fresh starts, attempting to leave behind substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into violence. Chris Kraus repeatedly invokes the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the text. At the same time, the author herself is embarking on her personal new beginning, since this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. Yet it turns out to be packed with the familiar conflicts and aesthetics as her previous works.

From Unplanned Author to Cult Classic

Kraus began as an artist who transitioned to writing unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, converting confessional female writing from humiliation into assassination. She kept producing books, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the impact and rawness that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a nonconformist creator who had become a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to experiment with fresh narrative sources, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a period in which she claims that current political era renders personal narrative unnecessary.

Several Eras, One Unescapable Past

The Four Spent the Day Together is divided into three sections, covering several time periods – all unable to escape their pasts. There is the tale of characters Emma and Jasper, versions of the author's parents, transitioning from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the narrative of the author, in the character of Catt Greene, reckoning with the delayed acclaim of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her addict husband a man named Paul. The third thread involves the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in rural Minnesota.

As a reader drawn to refined literature of the sort Kraus typically rejects, I was seduced by the narrative style of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the variety that Kraus herself often disregards, I was captivated by the literary tone of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates small details, like the pail that the protagonist as a child frees from the ice at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I found an ice toy!" she says; "a lovely toy", he responds, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like sweet treats". She tells Emma's story with inquiry and familiarity. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this different style could persist to the end. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she echoes from her idol author Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her earlier works returns in the middle section. The protagonist is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in the city's most challenging districts while shuttling between two different states, unable to aid Paul curb his addiction. She experiences powerlessness as her spouse cycles through low-resource employment as an addiction therapist in a environment driven by the anger and fear that powers Trump's victory. There are several pages about the protagonist facing cancellation on a platform, her occupation changed from "author" to "real estate holder" on the online encyclopedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. At one point she states that she's looking into the killing so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an the nation that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Murder Narrative

Thus we arrive to the homicide in question – and the eponymous day spent by the deceased with the killer and his companions. Kraus has compelling foundational content, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He anticipated intimacy but seems affably to have spent the day in the company of her associates, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for fits of anger.

Preoccupation and Open Ends

Catt gets obsessed by the story, and I found myself captivated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards ethical reporting and audacious rule-breaking clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to delve deeper into her personal fixations here. The most interesting character is Brittney, who gains dimension partly through the protagonist's connection to her – another bright, bullied girl going off the rails in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. This entire part feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that Kraus's narration ends almost mid-par