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The Four Spent the Day Together is populated with individuals chasing after new beginnings, trying to break free from addictions or toxic relationships, only to find hope curdling into conflict. The author frequently uses the phrase "fresh start", rendering it intentionally weary through recurring use. Phrases such as "He was ready for a new beginning" and "They opted for a clean break" appear throughout the narrative. At the same time, she seems to be making her personal new beginning, because this appears a new kind of book – documentarian, authentically narrative. However it proves to be packed with the same dilemmas and styles as past novels.

From Unplanned Author to Renowned Book

Chris Kraus began as an artist who became a writer unintentionally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, transforming intimate women's literature from abjection into defiance. She kept producing books, but the three subsequent compelling and abrasive novels lacked the power and directness that the correspondence format infused into the narrative voice of I Love Dick. This was not aided by was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to experiment with fresh narrative sources, turning outward to other people's stories, at a period in which she claims that Trumpian politics turns intimate literature obsolete.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, spanning multiple eras – none able to break free from their backgrounds. There is the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on Kraus's parents, relocating from the Bronx to the Connecticut countryside. Then there is the account of Kraus, in the persona of Catt Greene, grappling with the belated success of I Love Dick, the ascent of a political figure, and her partner struggling with addiction Paul. And there is the story of the murder of one troubled youth by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only 80 miles from Catt's rural residence in a remote part of Minnesota.

For this reader attracted to refined literature of the type Kraus herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial segment.

Being a reader who appreciates precise prose of the kind that Kraus usually avoids, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the initial part. It exhibits a new quality of attentiveness that makes room for minutiae, like the bucket that the youthful Catt dislodges from ice at the start of the story, aided by her cherished parent. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a lovely toy", he answers, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells Emma's narrative with curiosity and intimacy. "Emma experienced a dreamlike sensation – not precisely her dream."

Letdown and Fragmentation

I was fated to feel let down when I expected this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she dislikes the satisfaction readers like me have derived from I Love Dick; she's dedicated to fragmentation, to the untidy aesthetics she shares with her hero writer Kathy Acker, and the void and recurrence of her earlier works comes back in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the city's most challenging districts while moving between two different states, unsuccessful in assisting her husband control his drinking. She feels helpless as Paul transitions between poorly supported positions as an recovery specialist in a world fueled by the rage and anxiety that drives a political win. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt's social media ostracism on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on a reference site. Kraus still seems to be overly concerned about this. On one occasion she states that she's investigating the murder so that before departing the state, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her online critics would be unable to grasp, would not even see".

The Killing Story

So then we come to the murder itself – and the eponymous day spent by the victim with the murderer and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and knows hour by hour what happened when the victim Brandon came to visit Brittney after meeting her on an app where she sold sex pictures. He sought a sexual encounter but appears congenially to have passed the day alongside her friends, mooching around fixing his automobile and covering the cost of food and substances, before being shot by her romantic interest Micah – a young, mentally ill man who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the narrative, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing wrestle in this part. However, I would have preferred her to go further into her own obsessions here. The most interesting character is the character Brittney, who comes alive in part due to Catt's identification with her – a similarly gifted, tormented individual derailing in a struggling, neglected community. Kraus notes that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she doesn't dramatise these conversations. The complete segment feels strangely incomplete, to the extent that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par